Informal Settlements and Affordable Housing DURBAN 2014 Proceedings

250 Pages·2014·15.3 MB·English

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W110 - Informal
Settlements and

Affordable Housing

DURBAN 2014
Proceedings
W110 - Informal Settlements and Affordable Housing

W110 Durban 2014 Proceedings

W110 papers presented as part of the Proceedings of the UIA Congress:
Architecture Otherwise Resilience - Ecology - Values, held on 3-7 August 2014 in
Durban, South Africa

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ECOLOGICAL CATHARSIS THROUGH URBAN ACUPUNCTURE
Ali Arsalan Pasha Siddiqui, NesPak Ltd., Pakistan/Middle East Technical University, Turkey,
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Buildings as living machines entails the implication that context is merely a consequence of the geo-political
dynamic between built forms, rather than a discernible progression of spatial motivations. Considering a
broader perspective of terming cities as ecosystems that engage through a variety of interaction points, it is
evident that the synergy of natural processes maintains its own progression independent of architectural
intervention. The nature of public space and the genetic grains of urban fabric are similar, terming context as the
precursor to architectural intervention rather than its sequential result. The traditional interactive relationships
between natural ecosystems and built environment influenced by local culture and identity are gradually
deteriorating; causing cities to lose their distinctive cultural identity and urban landscapes. If we consider the city
as a living being in and of itself, growing exclusive of the built environment as an emergent entity similar to the
cyclic evolution of a neural network, we can associate that both have an interconnected network structure and
sustain the capacity to adapt and self-organize by manipulating morphogenetic information. Successful
examples of such cities evolve in a very specific manner, retaining older patterns while responding to change by
adding novel adaptations. As a result, a thorough initiative to engage the communities in active participation of
urban renewal needs to be conducted, where individuals learn how to produce small-scale socially catalytic
interventions through urban acupuncture, leading to the transformation of a larger urban context. The objective
of this research is to establish the need to understand the paradigm of urban ecosystems and how the built
environment is shaped through it, while investigating the phenomena of cultural landscape and ecology as part
of city image. Cities with engaged communities are more resilient and adaptive, gearing their activities towards
poverty alleviation and the achievement of sustainable ecological communities.

KEYWORDS: Urban Acupuncture, Neural Network, Sustainable Neighbourhoods

INTRODUCTION

The city represents a multi-layered progression, similar to the transmission of multiple ripples; which
conflict with each other and struggle to reach an equilibrium. Most architects have thoroughly emphasised
the importance of understanding buildings as living entities, which grow and evolve with time. One could
inquire why the built form is attributed a temporal and corporeal identity, while the urban fabric that
houses the structure is simply considered as a consequence of geo-political dynamics between built forms.
Context, which is observed as a mode of reference for architectural intervention, should be rightfully
defined as an evident progression of spatial motivations, terming the city as a living ecosystem which
maintains its own growth independent of architectural interference. The aim of this paper is to highlight
the importance of observing the city as a living ecosystem, in lieu of which, lead to an observation of the
processes and urban practices that give shape to public space. Since city infrastructure and built
environment always need to undergo comprehensive revitalization, it would bode well to consider public
space, as Lefebvre said, as a ‘the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action’, hence
encouraging analysis on the processes of spatial production rather than merely the space itself. In this
essence, it would be beneficial to consider the individual and communal motivations that give shape to the
public space and are the core foundations of the city as an ecosystem. Far from a mechanical attribute,
such an ecosystem is a living entity which consistently evolves and undergoes catharsis, as a means of
purification and growth.

ECOLOGICAL ECUMENOPOLIS

In order to understand the dynamics associated with the evolution of cities as living entities, it is crucial to
understand why cities exist; where to understand why cities exist we may begin by postulating a world
without cities. Although they are characterised has highly complex spatial phenomenon, cities can be
categorically defined by assessing a settlement with regards to productivity. The distinction of cities from
large settlements took place, when not all inhabitants of a certain locale were engaged in agrarian
activities, giving rise to specialised occupations, such as trade and food storage. For a world without cities
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to exist, each individual must engage in equal productivity, making them responsible for their own
sustenance, preventing specialised occupations from occurring and negating the existence of cities. Since,
the aforementioned is a highly idealistic and somewhat counterproductive situation, cities came into place
as central hubs of trade, exchange of ideas and sharing of natural resources. A notable characteristic in the
distinction between a small city and a large town, is the existence of organized government. Where a town
accomplishes common solutions through informal agreements between neighbours and community
dwellers, the city has professional administrations and regulations to handle policy making, in addition to a
method of taxation. It is thus apparent that cities and urban space came into being; not due to
architectural or infrastructure advances, rather due to developments in social arrangements and
occupational habits, leading us to question when urbanization and city building became a purely corporal
endeavour.

The expansion of transport networks stretching farther than anticipated, has led to the emergence of
‘metropolis’ and ‘megalopolis’ where the primary concern with regards to governance, is urban sprawl. This
comprises of the diaspora towards a suburban milieu, infrastructure development replacing rural land and
high segregation between residential and commercial uses, causing negative consequences to public and
private health, environmental degradation and socio-cultural disparity due to fragmentation. Such
dispersion causes a large increase in cost for services, where provision of water, sewerage, electricity and
security becomes substantially expensive per household. In addition, the environmental side-effects are
even more problematic, where the quality of air in modern suburbs is more contaminated compared to
smaller settlements, since the average suburban resident generates more carbon emission per capita due
to increased transport. Cars and trucks account for approximately 30% of emissions of oxides of nitrogen
and 30% of hydrocarbon emissions. An additional driving related emission is CO , an end product of the
2
burning of gasoline, which is the major greenhouse gas accounting for approximately 80% of emissions
with global warming potential. As a result of this, automobile traffic is a major contributor to global climate
change, which is a by-product of urban sprawl.

Farmlands and wildlife habitats are constantly displaced in favour of infrastructure development, throwing
the ecosystem out of balance, replacing forestry with impervious surfaces such as concrete and asphalt,
which are less effective in absorption of rainfall into the ground. Negative side effects of urban sprawl,
eventually lead to urban decay, where parts of the city, or in some cases the complete urban fabric,
becomes debilitated, resulting in deindustrialization, economic starvation, rampant unemployment and an
unreceptive cityscape. Even though there is no single cause of urban decay, it is mostly an outcome of
inappropriate planning decisions and distribution of facilities; as a result of which, it is important to
consider the design and planning decisions that have led to such degradation of the metropolitan tissue.
Form-focused theories of urban design do not deal with society at large, rather the formal quality of urban
space aiming to establish specific aesthetic prototypes of urban design. In this essence, urban design is
seen as a means to repair the urban fabric, restoring the quality of urban space to a non-deteriorated
previous state.

CITY AS A NEURAL NETWORK

The modern city can be observed to contain hybridized relations between the individual, ecology and
urban space; where the structure of the city tends towards a synthesis between the physiological needs of
the human body and the physical infrastructure of the city. If we consider the city as a living being in and of
itself, growing exclusive of the built environment as an emergent entity similar to the cyclic evolution of a
neural network, we can associate that both have an interconnected network structure and sustain the
capacity to adapt and self-organize by manipulating morphogenetic information. In theory, a metropolis
could constitute a form of organization of the city, analogous to a biological network that functions as the
structural organization of the brain. Akin to the neural network, the city is continuous but not
homogenous, articulated on different layers with varying connections and subdivided in thousands of
different branches, defining the city essentially as an organic structure that is various and changeable,
capable to incorporate mutations and self-organise.

Studying the city as a neural network means considering the whole system as field of interactions, making
it plausible to segregate a parameter and test the reaction of the system according to the chosen values for
it. This reveals an enormous potential to directly manipulate the genetic code of the city itself, following
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the rules of its natural behaviour, where development is not considered a designed superimposition on the
city, rather the result of a manipulation of its intrinsic structure. Starting from this structure, the city can
simulate grow different configurations, permutations and iterations, refining and redefining the city vision
which has emerged through the uncovering of its individual neural network. In addition to isolating a
particular parameter for stress-testing of the city system, it is most beneficial to isolate particular areas of
the urban layout and conducting analyses on the particular points as means of inculcating agents for
revitalization of the urban fabric. These particular points may be referred to as urban pressure points, which
may be the locus operandi regarding various activities, ranging from religious centres to post offices and in
many cases parks and public squares. The isolation of such pressure points, ensures that urban intervention
with a guided purpose will be conducted in a controlled environment and if successful, may be permitted
to propagate into the milieu.

URBAN PRESSURE POINTS

In essence, a localised response to community needs, rather than a large-scale urban renewal, would
respond to localized needs with a greater comprehension of how city-wide systems converge at that very
node and how working on that particular pressure point could cause a ripple-effect of renewal to spread
outwards. This method of urban revitalization is termed as urban acupuncture, which is most aptly defined
by Marco Casagrande as a ‘manipulation of the collective sensuous intellect of a city’. This strategy views
the city as a multi-dimensional, living, breathing organism and locates areas that are in need of repair,
similar to the energy-flows observed in the Chinese practice of Acupuncture. Projects pertaining to
sustainable design and efficient spatial usage, may be linked to the puncture needles that revitalize the
organism or system by working intensively on the parts. By understanding the city as a living entity, the
process promotes a community-centric method, highlighting localised nuclei which are analogous to
nodes and vital organs of the human body. Although sites are selected through analysis of social, economic
and ecological factors, the small-scale catalytic interventions are not necessarily geared at influencing such
literal aspects of the locale, rather in many situations may focus on miniscule changes in the fabric, such as
plantation of trees, introduction of street furniture and even introducing new shades and colours in the
ambiance. Since large-scale revitalization projects are not only less effective in achieving the required
result, not to mention less economically feasible; targeted small-scale changes as an approach to gradual
heal the larger urban setting is the practical motivation.

Perceiving the city as a thoroughly interlaced living, breathing entity, the urban acupuncture perspective
promotes communitarian machinery and sets localized nuclei – analogous to the meridians of the human
body. Urban acupuncture exploits the temporal nature of urbanization through punctual manipulation of
urban energy flows in order to create ecologically sustainable urban developments. Compared to
traditional methods of large scale urban renewal, these interventions have resulted to be more sensitive
and adaptable to community needs, since they respond to local necessities with the knowledge of how
overlapping urban layers converge at a particular node. Interventions at such strategic nodes prove to be
the antithesis to the corrosive outcomes of mass-industrialization, by engaging the ecological undercurrent
of the milieu and allowing environmental emergence to take place.

THE ARCHITECTURE NEEDLE

With regards to the urban organism such small-scale interventions trigger cathartic processes, establishing
a relationship between the urban collective consciousness and the vital systems of nature. Interventions of
such a nature are exemplified in feats of Architecture such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao by Frank
Gehry, The Sydney Opera House by Jorn Utzon, the Pompidou Centre in Paris by Sir Richard Rogers and
Renzo Piano, pointed interventions which led to real revolutions of the city fabric. The pioneer of the
practice, Brazilian architect and politician Jaime Lerner’s approach in Curitiba, Brazil is an exemplar of urban
acupuncture, with the proposition of affordable public transport, incentives for waste collective and the
construction of small parks scattered throughout the city. Lerner asserts the simplicity of the process by
expressing, ‘the city is hit, but of it, it benefits all the country. Sting the park with a needle, and of it, benefits
the whole metropolis.’
In the Netherlands, urban renewal and regeneration have been a key concern for the past 50 years, since
after World War II and the bombardment of Rotterdam, the key issue was the restructuring of the city
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because of the housing shortage. From the end of the war and the late 60s, there was a period of urban
restructuring considered an improvement of the urban structure, with the aim of ensuring adequate
functioning of city centres in respect to expanding settlements. However, in the 90s, more differentiated
housing was seen as a solution to discourage spatial segregation, with projects like Borneo & Sporenburg
revitalization taking shape in the Docklands. 2500 low-rise dwelling units focused on water-related
activities were designed, as a new interpretation of the traditional Dutch canal house. However today, since
the economic crisis it has become more inconvenient to create large scale transformations for whole
neighbourhoods, so the demand for small scale interventions is increasing. Urban acupuncture, in this
instance can be considered a 21st century strategy of urban regeneration, since it implements the small
scale interventions in such a way that it takes into account the long term goals and the requirements of the
area. For successful transformation of the physical environment and its social attributes, it is essential to
maintain and strengthen positive characteristics of the spatial identity, so as to not inculcate a
reprogramming of the genetic code, rather merely restructuring and repairing the damaged topographies.
An additional example, can be observed in Beirut, Lebanon, where Vladimir Djurovic’s proposition for the
‘Samir Kassir Public Garden’, acts as a gateway to the Central District of Beirut. The core concept revolves
around the framing and emphasising of two ancient trees that have stood in the locale for a long time. An
ecologically focused approach, the architect proposed a raised pool, lined with pebbles to create a sense of
solitude and respite on a miniscule site located in an urban district. On a larger scale, the ecological
restoration of industrial cities, can observe urban acupuncture as spontaneous emergence of urban farms
and community gardens punctuating the more mechanical city and tuning it towards a more sustainable
co-existence with the natural environment. Ecological interventions in large-scale revitalization projects
generally fail to achieve the purpose of balancing out the urban hardscape, primarily because the
ecological milieu gives shape to its own self-contained microcosm, which counterproductively fails to
engage with the hard cityscape and instead distinguishes itself as ‘the park’ or ‘the green belt’. Hence, it is
apparent that large scale ecological interventions are impractical and as a result destructive to the city
fabric, since an active dialogue between built and natural needs to take-place on a much smaller scale, one
that is achievable through urban acupuncture geared towards ecological intervention, in essence, an
ecological catharsis of the milieu.
Small-scale ecologically motivated interventions are also a positive motivation, since they endeavour to
bring together community dwellers, in attempts to be part of an environmentally-friendly development of
their locale. It is evident that architects and planners participating in such urban acupuncture initiatives can
utilize such opportunities to educate communities on the importance of small-scale socially catalytic
interventions. A thorough initiative to engage the communities in active participation of urban renewal
needs to be conducted, where individuals learn different methods of contributing positively to their
neighbourhood, such as planting trees, cleaning streets and even repairing walkways, leading to the
transformation of a larger urban context. The objective of the initiative is to establish the need to
thoroughly understand the paradigm of urban ecosystems and how the built environment is shaped
through it, while investigating the phenomena of cultural landscape and ecology as part of city image.

CONCLUSION

Cities with engaged communities are more resilient and adaptive, gearing their activities towards poverty
alleviation and the achievement of sustainable ecological communities. The goal is to not only inculcate a
manner of rational and clear thought, but also to find methods which alleviate the difficulties associated
with different environments and inhabitants. Lacking a thorough understanding of grass root settlements
in most cases, architectural intervention as a means of social revitalization fails to establish a symbiotic
relationship with the community and eventually succumbs to impassive lethargy. A successfully geared
urban acupuncture initiative can eventually lead towards poverty alleviation and self-sufficient settlements,
creating cities with adaptive and resilient communities, gearing their activities towards communal progress
and generating a vibrant urban context and to achieve sustainable ecological communities.

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